Disney has dominated this weekend’s box office in more ways than one. “Live-action” remakeThe Lion Kingcompletely dominated, pulling in a jaw-dropping $185 million in its U.S. opening weekend and bringing its worldwide two-week gross to $531 million.
The Lion Kingis the third remake Disney has premiered this year—with two more,Maleficent: Mistress of EvilandThe Lady and theTramp,on the way later in 2019—and it’s had the most successful opening weekend of them all. For comparison, late May releaseAladdin’s opening weekend pulled in $91.5 million domestically while March’sDumbowas just shy of $46 million domestic. Whatever critical doubts surroundedThe Lion Kingahead of its release clearly haven’t bothered audiences as they’ve flocked to relive the magic of 1994’sThe Lion Kingas updated by directorJon Favreau.
But Disney’s good fortunes don’t stop there. Thanks to Marvel Studios, (part of the Disney family) sharing the rights to the Spider-Man character with Sony, the House of Mouse can bask in the ongoing success ofSpider-Man: Far From Homeas it got another $21 million here in the U.S., bringing its domestic gross just shy of $320 million. Audiences near and far are still heading to theaters to seeAladdin, too, as it’s earned $3.8 million domestically and $9.2 million abroad. So, even thoughAladdinis only at number seven in the charts this week, it hardly encompasses the global success the film still has in its ninth weekend in theaters.
In betweenFar From Home, currently at number two, andAladdinin seventh place sitsToy Story 4in third, continuing to bring in big domestic dollars with $14.6 million earned this weekend.Crawlcontinues to perform well, especially considering it’s neither a sequel nor is it adapted from another source work. With $6 million earned domestically in its second weekend, the success ofCrawlseems to imply original IP can also mean pleasing box office receipts (who knew?). In fourth and fifth place, respectively, areYesterdayandStuber. It’sYesterday’s fourth weekend in domestic theaters and it’s still bringing in solid chunks of change; this weekend, it was $5.1 million.Stubercontinues to stumble, pulling in $4 million in its second weekend — a sharp drop from its opening weekend domestic gross of $8.2 million.
Finally, a very honorable mention — and yet another piece of evidence proving Disney’s true box office juggernaut — goes toAvengers: Endgame, which finally beat outJames Cameron’sAvatarfor the honor ofthe highest global box office grossof all time.Endgamehas only been in theaters for 13 weeks and has brought in $2.79 billion worldwide whileAvatartook nearly double the amount of time to earn its $2.7897 billion worldwide. Impressive? Yes. Mind-blowing? Absolutely. A bellwether of Disney’s continued dominance? Without a shadow of a doubt.
The Lion King (2019)
$185,000,000
Spider-Man: Far From Home
$21,000,000
$319,659,412
Toy Story 4
$14,600,000
$375,533,349
$6,000,000
$23,834,810
$5,100,000
$57,596,465
$4,000,000
$16,081,864
Aladdin (2019)
$3,800,000
$340,040,714
Annabelle Comes Home
$2,660,000
$66,582,201
$1,599,155
$22,482,183
The Secret Life of Pets 2
$1,530,000
$151,551,165
